


you'll find me in the garden

by remnantof



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, First Meetings, Kissing, M/M, Minor Violence, Pre-Relationship, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 08:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remnantof/pseuds/remnantof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Jason is Poison Ivy's sidekick of sorts.  Batman wants Ivy back in Arkham; Robin visits her warehouse in an attempt to avoid collateral damage, and plays an interesting game of chase.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll find me in the garden

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from livejournal by the author

“I don’t like this,” Bruce reminds him, the size of the communicator rendering even Batman’s voice tinny and static. He didn’t like it in the cave, he didn’t like it when Tim was flowing over rooftops downtown, didn’t like it when he dropped, briefly, out of communications range to circle in on the warehouse from the south.

“Your voyeuristic tendencies have been noted,” Tim answers irritably, knowing he sounds like Alfred and knowing Bruce _will_ like that, deep down. He lands on the rooftop, corrugated tin that feels sun-warmed even at midnight on the shore. He makes a note that, next time they want to find Ivy, they might start with a trail of light and heat expenditures. “Ivy has a mildly softer spot for kids,” he points out, though he’s hoping he won’t have to deal with her at all. She’s not.

She’s not the _target_ , and Tim knows he’s lost objectivity on this case because calling Jason tha  
t turns his stomach. He doesn’t like this plan either, and keeping Bruce at a distance is as much about salvaging his dignity as it is their safety.

He needs to start moving. Too much hesitation and Bruce will _know_ he doesn’t like this. “Switching to one-way,” he notifies, before Bruce can get another reproach in. It’s not efficient.

Nothing about this plan is efficient, he thinks, and he knows Bruce can still hear him sigh, but he does it anyway. Robin is supposed to be the friendly side of their operation, but seducing teen vagrants away from their supervillain benefactors is a little _too_ friendly, in his book.

It really doesn’t matter if it’s Ivy, and her teen vagrant tried to seduce him first. Tim tries not to think about how thoroughly fucked he is. He _definitely_ isn’t thinking about the starry-eyed look Jason had gotten when Tim pinned him last week, the way he’d grinned and _relaxed /em > under Tim when he’d demanded, too shocked to hold back, “Who are _you_?”_

 _Wouldn’t you like to know_. Hardly an original line, but a mystery always works better on Robin than a face full of pheromones.

Okay, it works better on _him_. Tim has few illusions left about Dick’s self-control.

There are vents all over the roof, steaming humid air into the night, but Tim takes his time locating an entry point: a sky light left cracked open, within reach of an overgrown catwalk. There are several reasons to trust it: he doesn’t particularly want to squeeze in through a sweaty vent, and of the warehouse’s possible inhabitants, only one is likely to come up here for some air.

“I was wondering when I’d see you again,” Jason says--less of a mystery now, but Tim doesn’t think he ever intended to stay one. As predicted, he’s leaning against the rails, damp curls going stiff in the night breeze. Less  
predictably, though the image slots nicely into Tim’s perception, he’s smoking.

He can’t help--

He can’t help a lot of things around Jason, he remembers wryly, though he’d like to blame the general atmosphere of Ivy’s capers on his behavior last time. “Doesn’t that bother her,” he asks, knowing Ivy doesn’t take kindly to fire around her plants. Any plants, really.

Jason smirks, blows smoke up and out on a draft. “Did you tell _your_ mentor you were coming here,” he asks, and Tim nearly blushes because, well. He kind of did, and Bruce didn’t stop him. Nothing about the plan is efficient, but it’s hard to argue with the merit of using his weaknesses to their advantage. “I think she trusts me not to burn the place down while she’s out,” he snorts, and Tim has to arch a brow because that’s...probably not a ruse. He wonders if Bruce is still in the cave, if there’s a way to signal to him that he o  
ught to go _look_ for her.

He doesn’t have to leave the cave to do that, Tim knows, but Jason is flicking his cigarette out the window with practiced ease and there’s a sheen of sweat cooling on his neck that Tim notices because he notices _everything_ , and.

It would be really nice if Bruce left him _alone_ for this. If he’s going to fail (which he won’t, he thinks, because he is _not_ Dick), he could do without the audience.

Jason leans sluggishly against a thick growth of vines, and that is definitely a ruse. Tim knows he can _move_ when he wants to, that he’s from a cold hard place and the healthy flush of his skin doesn’t hide the scars on his knuckles. Jason is bigger _and_ faster than Tim, and the only advantage Tim has on that is Jason doesn’t _know_ it yet. Thus far he’s been: sluggish, and docile, and more interested in playing with Robin than putting a stake in him.  
p>

Tim coughs reflexively, deep in his throat. That had _hurt_ , and he really hopes Ivy isn’t here. Jason hadn’t been in the picture then, but Tim can’t presume Jason would have cared. Pinning someone with your legs and breathing on them until they almost come in their tights doesn’t exactly spell out a deep concern for their well-being, he thinks, then stops thinking about that. Because Jason is watching him, and smirking like he knows Tim is thinking about it.

You don’t even know my name, Tim remembers, trying to build a wall out of it. Jason’s smile changes, goes from lazy to what Tim supposes is _real_ , and it makes him look incredibly young. Tim’s age, though Tim knows he isn’t. “Look, if you bat-freaks need to be invited over the fucking _threshold_ , consider yourself invited,” he says, and he tumbles over the rail and down the vines in a shiver of leaves and bright, bright teeth.

-

He kn  
ew Robin would follow. Jason knows a lot about the boy wonder--not facts, but the kind of shit Ivy calls intuition, before she goes off on a tangent about how all living things are connected and men are animals and Jason is a little worried about what she’s going to do when she realizes that, hey, he’s got a _dick_ like all the rest of them.

He’s pretty sure his intuition about Robin is more to do with being a couple of teenage boys than a mythical council of Ents that Ivy talks to whenever her body produces a little too much THC, but hey, maybe the pheromone wielding redhead in a plant-bikini knows more about hormones than he does. The point is, Robin _follows_ , and Jason is half-hard just from the _effort_ he has to put into running from him.

It’s a game, but half the fun is knowing he could _lose_.

He kinds of gets why Ivy toys with Batman, instead of dragging him six feet under and leaving him there. â  
�œClimb a lot of trees at that orphanage,” he calls, knowing Robin’s close. He doesn’t need the facts to play with the kid, and he _knows_ Robin is just a kid. He doesn’t always look it, but there’s something about the way he acts, Jason can tell his age doesn’t add up to it.

Not that Jason’s the right age to play chase in his birthday suit, but he’s already learned that clothes don’t last long in Ivy’s jungles.

Plants don’t fare much better, and the leaves on his side shred and fall away as he shimmies higher into the tree. He’s not sure what kind of advantage he has here--the vines make bat-toys a pain to use, but, well. _Vines_. Jason cuts his hand on a ragged stretch of bark and still doesn’t envy Robin his gauntlets, because he likes that. His blood on the tree, Robin’s frown when he lands in front of Jason on a thick branch. The way he says “I can patch that up,” like catching Jason was easy  
, an afterthought. Like he maybe gives a shit that Jason is bleeding.

Jason grins, tackles him off the branch and gambles on Robin’s ability to catch them, wraps wiry arms around him underneath the flaring cape. Maybe there’s something to the gauntlets--Robin grips the nearest vine and swings them to another branch, and Jason can _feel_ the pull of muscle he puts into it. This is what it’s like, he thinks. This is how it feels to be saved by the dynamic duo.

He’s pretty sure Robin drops them on purpose, like a vindictive little shit who can _read minds_ , but they don’t fall into anything worse than a patch of moss and earth: humid, dark, clean smelling. Jason lets himself be rolled because he knows it’ll hurt more if he doesn’t, and Robin tucks his head in against his neck, protecting it.

Jason isn’t sure what the game is now. Creepily-effective vigilante seduction, maybe, because he feels like Robin just ki  
ssed him breathless instead of dumped him into a pile of dirt.

Any port in a storm, he thinks, arching into the weight of him. He thinks Robin might be a little guy under the armor--littler than Jason, anyway. Little enough that he needs Batman the way Jason wishes he didn’t need Ivy, need anyone who doesn’t really need him back.

Robin would need him back, even if he’s just staring down at him through the mask like he can’t _feel_ the way Jason wants to move under him. And maybe that’s a sign, or another thing to know about the kid: he doesn’t think he has to play it this way to keep Robin around. He could sit up and let Robin bandage his hand and talk to him, and maybe Robin wouldn’t vow to run away together and keep each other safe on the streets they’ve probably got to look forward to if the adults ever get tired of them, but a girl can fucking dream, right?

-

The comparisons Tim finds himself drawing when he  
manages to get Jason to hold still are not the kind he needs to be making in this situation. They take him back to his old life, to the stories he used to read about adventures, before he started having them. It draws too much sympathy to look at Jason’s mulish frown and think of lost boys, to eye the cut on his hand and the dirt under his nails and think about an island of boys with painted faces and spears.

Bruce might call it efficient to simplify Jason, to distance himself by thinking of him like a character, a representation of the Id, but Tim is Robin for a reason. Tim understands that Jason is a person, and he also understands that most people haven’t treated him like one.

There’s a reason most of Bruce’s proteges are collected from moments of weakness, moments of need, Tim thinks. Bruce is terrible with people.

He’s not sure what it says about him that he volunteered for the job, but he doubts any Robin, folded into this  
life by any means, could give up the thrill once they wore the cape for the first time. Once they chased someone through a home-grown jungle; once they got to sit next to him and smirk at the way Bruce’s disinfectant made him flinch.

At this point it feels predictable, when Jason leans over to kiss the expression from his face. Tim closes his eyes behind the mask and lets it happen, just for a moment: soft, warm skin against his chapped lips, Jason’s tongue trying to smooth and slick them, trying to push between. Tim walls him out with his teeth and keeps still, until Jason pulls away with a frustrated snort. “Not so friendly when the green girl isn’t around,” he says, and Tim can tell he’s hurt by how hard he’s trying to sound like he doesn’t care. “I see how it is.”

Which isn’t the case, but Bruce is still listening, and Tim won’t satisfy either of them with an answer. “Let me finish,” he says instead, and Jason w  
ill have to read his apology in the way he lets himself lick Jason’s saliva from the corner of his mouth. He reads _something_ from it, at least, because he makes himself stop fidgeting.

Id, he can hear Bruce saying, even with the communicator off. Give him what he wants and he’ll come to us. Maybe Tim is as bad with people as Bruce is--he didn’t exactly have _friends_ before this, and he’s not about to hold Bruce or _Jason_ in that category--but he doesn’t think that’s how Jason works at all. He’s still just a kid, and Tim.

Tim knows what it’s like to have what you want, anything you want, but not what you need. He has to hold Jason away, he has to bandage his hand--he has to prove that they can take _care_ of Jason, without attaching a price to it. “There,” he says, and he almost starts to tell Jason that he can bring him some tape for his hands, if he’s going to keep climbing around the ware  
house, but Bruce is listening and Tim--

he’s not sure he’s coming back. He’s not sure there will be a warehouse to come back to, after they find Ivy.

He closes his mouth. He wants to turn off the feed on his communicator, but he doesn’t trust Bruce to trust his judgment, because _he_ doesn’t trust his judgment right now. What he wants to do is explain himself, _thoroughly_ , and let Jason’s survival instinct lead him in the right direction.

What he _wants_ is to shove Jason off the root they’re sitting on, prove he doesn’t need a kiss from Ivy to give a shit about him and say _please_.

Neither would be as efficient as trussing Jason up and telling Bruce to bring the car around back, but he’s supposed to be the good cop, here. People are supposed to maintain a reasonable expectation that he _won’t_ hang them upside down from a rooftop until they squeal. Jason either believes that, o  
r he’s really that reckless, because he’s actually waving a hand in front of Tim’s face, earth to spaced-out boy wonder. “So, you don’t want to fuck, and you don’t want to _talk_. Please tell me this isn’t your idea of a social call, because you kind of suck at it.”

“I’ll make sure Batman invites you to our next brunch,” Tim says. “And I do.” Jason’s brows arch, and Tim clarifies just to put a sharp smile back on his face: “Suck at it.”

“I could run away again, that’s always fun.” His smile falters after a beat, like he’s not sure Tim thinks so. Tim hums, not giving Jason an inch, because he wants to see what Jason does without it.

Dick would accuse him of flirting; Tim would have an aneurysm trying to wrap his head around _Dick_ accusing him of flirting. Jason just laughs, and whatever he thinks Tim is here for, he tries to crawl into his lap anyway. “Or I could stay here,” and  
Tim hums again, neutral, and Jason’s laugh ghosts over the sensitive line of skin at the edge of his mask. Tim shifts his feet, and nearly kicks himself when the rustle of dry leaves makes him tense, waiting for vines around his arms and throat.

Jason stops. “I’m not like her, you know,” he says carefully. “I can’t make you like me,” and Tim _knew_ that, after his research, but not that Jason is so _unsure_ until he hears him say it. He can almost hear the _if_ you like me and he can almost hear Bruce telling him to _go_ with it, get Jason out of here so he can go after Ivy without worrying about some kid.

Tim’s exhales slowly, doesn’t let it shake and reaches up to hold Jason’s jaw with the tips of his fingers. “Jason,” he says evenly, feeling the way the other boy’s throat tenses and moves when he realizes Tim did his homework, maybe more of it than Jason wanted. He sighs the name again,  
and he’s using the touch to stall, to hold Jason in place while he gets his feet in place to slide away.

He does like him, but.

It isn’t a social call.

-

Robin doesn’t kiss him, just touches his face cautiously with the rough pads of his gauntlets and breathes against the corner of Jason’s jaw like he really, really wants to. Jason shudders, considers the merits of a suit that might hide his reaction a little better. The leaves shiver with him, whispering, and Robin’s forehead relaxes in a way that Jason thinks means his eyes are closed. “I won’t do this,” he sighs, extricating himself from Jason and drawing that slick cape around his shoulders, until he’s a pillar of shadow drawn up from the roots they’re standing in. “Not here.”

Not here, and Jason wants to demand _why not_ because the greenhouse is warm and alive and _home_ , for him, as bright as the costume Robin puts on every night--

>

\--the costume he’s hiding under his cape, the colors he takes home to a dark, damp cave and Jason shudders again, knows Ivy is rubbing off on him because he pictures a red and gold flower trying so hard to survive underground, in the rocks under Gotham city. It’s just _sad_. “You came here to see me,” he presses, and the pout is--mostly--affected. “Don’t be such a fucking tease.”

“Don’t be so _fucking_ naive,” Robin counters, only it somehow doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of Jason; it sounds like he’s...tired.

What the _fuck_.

“I came here on reconnaissance.”

The only reason Jason doesn’t punch him in the mouth after that is because Robin doesn’t even have the decency to sound like a smug bastard about it.

Okay, the real reason is he’s not sure he can take someone like _Robin_ when he’s wearing leaves instead of body-armor, but it’s weird, being misled by  
a guy who makes it sound like it’s just business. It probably is just business, except Jason keeps thinking about stupid flowers in stupid caves and he kind of. He kind of _hates_ Batman all over again. “If he puts her back in Arkham I’m fucked,” he says plainly, not like it _bothers_ him, because he can’t let it bother him until it happens. What bothers him here and now is that the guy he really wants to make out with against this tree is going to help _make_ it happen.

Robin falters. Not like, trips over his cape falters, but Jason thinks he crosses his arms under it and his head doesn’t move but Jason feels like he’s not being stared at anymore. Then he feels like he’s being stared at _harder_ , like those lenses are magnifying a look he can’t even see. “There is...precedent,” Robin starts. “He wouldn’t leave you on your own, at the very least--”

“He’d what, find me another foster  
-home to run away from,” Jason spits. “Or would we get to share a bunk bed in his fucking cave of boy wonders: thanks but _no thanks_ , bird brain.” He needs sunlight, he needs freedom, he needs color. He really wants Robin to ditch the cape or maybe just _move_ , instead of standing there like a tall, dark marker on a grave. “Go ahead, reconnoiter the fucking weeds in the parking lot for all I care, but you tell that asshole he can’t take her down without hurting someone now. You tell him someone gives a shit about her, even if he doesn’t.”

If Robin doesn’t get that, he obviously doesn’t know Jason as well as he thinks he does. He obviously doesn’t have all the _facts_ , because Ivy didn’t make him like her either. She caught him stealing apples in her slice of the park and she could have fucking _killed_ him, she could have taken something in return, but she’d looked at him with those liquid green  
eyes and just. Ask him if he needed somewhere to stay. None of that _we could rule the world_ bullshit she tries to lure people in with, be the king of my sexy plant empire, just the promise to keep him warm and fed, if he wanted.

She’s a _good person_ , he thinks. Maybe not always to other people, but he.

Needs her.

There’s nothing affected about his scowl, or the tremor that runs through it.

Robin tilts his head, considering or--no, _listening_. When he moves, the cape still doesn’t open, just parts for the hand that reaches for his collar, holds a dark mic out for Jason. “You can tell him yourself, if you want.” And he still doesn’t sound smug, he sounds. He’s fucking _concerned,_ frowning in a way that makes Jason wish he’d gotten to really kiss the stupid freak before he decided to _hate his guts_.

He takes the mic, looks at it in his palm and thinks about seeds, about ho  
w maybe there _are_ bad ones. Nothing good could grow out of this, and he crushes it between his fingers as he balls them into a fist.

He’s pretty sure Robin is just humoring him at this point, but he punches him in the mouth anyway, splits his lip and thinks _red_ , and hopes the color stands out nicely in their fucking cave.

-

At least Bruce didn’t hear him getting socked in the teeth, he thinks. Tim can taste the blood welling up in his mouth and swallows instead of spits, knows the dangers of spilling his blood on _Ivy’s_ turf. Jason doesn’t need meta powers to get under his skin, but Bruce is probably on his way at this point, and if he shows up to hassle Jason, Tim is pretty sure mama bear won’t be far behind.

He really hopes Bruce isn’t on his way to hassle Jason, for so many reasons. “She isn’t stable Jason,” he says, shifting nimbly up and over the tangle of roots to avoid another punch.  
Jason is favoring his uninjured hand, but only because it’s his dominant side. Every time he moves in he advertises his direction with his feet, and he knows how to fight but he doesn’t know how to _lie_ , and Tim knows he’s as bad as Bruce because that shouldn’t be a bad thing.

He likes it; he wants to take Jason home and beat it out of him.

For now, it’s a relief: Jason is good enough that Tim doesn’t have to keep playing with him, but not so good that Tim can’t try to explain himself while he moves. When he draws a batarang from his belt it’s only to cut a path for them through a tangle of vines, only to watch Jason’s face as he does it: his eyes narrow, his fingers uncurl from their fists and he focuses on catching up rather than punching Tim’s face in. “Because Batman’s so fucking _sane_ ,” Jason calls, still scowling as he darts into a different tangle of vines. He doesn’t need a knife to get around  
this place, but he doesn’t exactly have to pull several yards of bulletproof cape after him.

“I know she’s been kind to you,” he adds, while he waits for Jason to reappear, because it’s not like he’s going to _argue_ with that. “I’m just saying that could _change_. She needs help, you need--”

“Don’t you tell me what I need,” Jason growls from--of course, _above_ him, and Tim throws the batarang away before Jason can wrestle himself into a flesh wound. Tim doesn’t want to think about the infections one could pick up in Ivy’s lair, and the plan really didn’t include dragging Jason to the cave with a gut-wound. It didn’t really involve letting Jason pin him in a tangle of vines, either, but Tim can’t say he never wanted it to happen. Jason is taller and broader, his skin darker, healthier, and Tim still has the advantage because when he swallows, Jason _stops_. There’s barely any light  
filtering through the vines, and he doesn’t switch to night-vision, just puts Jason together by the shine of sweat on his skin, the gleam of his eyes, his wet mouth.

He hasn’t hit him once, even if he can still taste blood in his mouth. He doesn’t _want_ to hit him. Tim swallows again, the sound thick in the dense air. “There is,” he says, then pauses to frown, examine his teeth with his tongue to make sure the only _feel_ loose. “There is greater evidence to suggest that Batman is a capable guardian, should you need one.”

Jason stares down at him and breathes; the thicket seems to breathe with him. “You...you actually think that’s _persuasive_ ,” he says, sounding less surprised than...awed. Tim really needs to reevaluate his communication skills, he thinks, starting with letting people destroy his communicator and ending with knowing how to appeal to people on an emotional, rather than rational, level.  
“You probably _fell_ for something like that.”

Sure, Tim thinks, closing his eyes and trying to breath deeply enough to clear his head. The humid air isn’t cooperating any better than Jason is. “I do, you know. Like you.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever said that to anyone, even Dick, and he used to _stalk_ him.

Jason sucks the wet air through his teeth. "You just don't want me to hit you again." Tim thinks he's joking and he only sort of is when he counters: "If I didn't, you couldn't." He wouldn't say he wanted to get hit the first time, but. He can't always draw the line between what he wants and what he _deserves_.

If Jason _knew_ that, knew him, Tim wouldn't taste blood every time he worried his lip. And Jason wouldn't be so fascinated, catching him at it. "You don't even _know_ me," he protests, and it's true, but it's also--

It's: "Jason Todd; your birthday is in August, bu  
t your concern for this operation says you _aren't_ turning eighteen. You were in foster care for six years before disappearing from the system. No one reported you missing until an inspection of your last home." Tim did his _own_ inspection two days ago, and it's why he's here; it's why Ivy can't go down until Jason is out of the way. "I wouldn't--Jason. You won't go back there, I promise."

Robins never lie, he doesn't say. It almost makes it true.

If not for the armor, Jason's grip would leave bruises on his arms. "You're not really giving me a choice," he says.

"There's always a choice," Tim answers, and if he were--if he were a _better_ Robin, he'd smile and leave it at that. "I'm just not giving you an option that doesn't _change_ things." You just don't trust me, and it's alright, because Tim knows he hasn't given Jason a reason. No one has. "You don't have to work for us, you don't have to rat her o  
ut. I just."

I don't want you to fall off the grid, again. "Just come with me. Please."

A beat, and he can feel the blood not-drying on his chin. Too hot, too humid. "You're really pathetic," Jason says, but Tim doesn't have time to question it before Jason leans into him, makes the space smaller, darker, hotter. Then no space at all, just Jason licking his mouth clean, licking _into_ it again, and Tim...sighs, lets him in. Bruce isn't listening now, and it's as good a way as any to overcome his persuasiveness issues.

And he just. _Likes_ him, likes _Jason_. His chest feels tight, not enough air or--or something he didn't plan for. Tim doesn't know what to do with his hands; he can smell the dirt on Jason's skin and there are leaves in his hair, brushing Tim's face. When he finally _moves_ , there are leaves and sharp hips in his hands and, oh.

There's a joke about being overdressed on his tongue when  
it slides against Jason's, and they both stop: Jason hisses through his teeth again and Tim tries to just _breathe_. There are so many reasons not to do this--not Bruce, not Ivy--but stupid, _personal_ reasons. What if he does it wrong, what if he's not good enough, or Jason just wants to win his stupid game and slink back into the trees? If Tim is relying on himself as the bargaining chip, then he can't miscalculate. Can't overestimate his worth. When Jason slides questioning fingers along the edge of his mask, Tim swallows audibly, but is only visibly torn: "Not. Not this time," he says. Better to bargain something intangible, than himself.

Or just keep _being_ intangible, and watch Jason lick his lips, mull over what he thinks he can get tonight. What he'll have to give for it. Tim doesn't want him to, but he knows better than to _say_ that.

Jason mulls it over long enough that Tim starts to disappear complete  
ly, back into his head where he has to consider when Ivy will return, when Bruce will stop waiting for him. Consider how far they are from the nearest cache, if his cape will be sufficient cover for Jason until they get him some clothes. If Jason even goes with him--he is, after all, spending most of his time sprawled under the naked boy focusing on what to _dress_ him in.

"Protip, boy wonder--if you want to take me anywhere, don't go places I can't follow," Jason murmurs, tugging at his hair a little.

"Did you just say _protip_?" Does that mean you'll come with me?

"Yeah; I can read, too, in case you were wondering."

"Ah, but _do_ you," Tim asks archly; Jason cuffs him in the ear and. It feels good, good enough to let himself laugh, and keep laughing when Jason swears he only swipes Hustler for the articles. "How much time do we have," he asks, voice thin, a little breathless. He's melting out out of his suit i  
n their current position. In their _nest_. His mouth twists: pun not intended, but. _Robin_.

"You mean, how long before I give in to your asinine charms, or how long before Batman and Ivy show up to fight over your virtue," Jason snorts--and the sound shouldn't be that attractive, but Tim isn't just sweating from the heat. "You tell me, you're the one wired for this bust." The tone is casual, but not _so_ casual that Jason thinks they're still being recorded.

It's Bruce, they might be. "The first one," Tim says, testing _that_ water for now. He really doesn't want Bruce or Ivy to have anything to _do_ with his virtue. Jason touches the edge of his mask again; Tim wonders just how much he's going to compromise tonight. "How much would it hurt if I just pulled this off?"

A lot, and Tim frowns so he won't flinch. "Reasonably more than punching me in the mouth." If he's reading Jason correctly, that _sh  
ouldn't_ be an incentive, but Jason isn't moving his fingers away, just leaning in: "Promise I'll kiss it better." Tim shivers, hands tightening on Jason's hips.

Jason hasn't, actually, answered his question. "So. I'm charming."

" _Pathetic_ ," Jason repeats, too close and too soft and _close_ , and it means something else this time. Something sadder, truer, and maybe Jason doesn't need to see his eyes to know that it kind of hurts. "What can I say, I'm easy," and they're kissing again, like the conversation is something they can keep balling up and throwing away.

It's hard to protest when Jason _presses_ , splits his lip again. Every kiss stings and every time Jason shifts his head Tim's _teeth_ hurt, and.

For now, he decides. He can throw a lot away just to taste his blood in Jason's mouth.

-

“Try not to crush this one,” Robin says, holding out a hand Jason can’t really focus on, beca  
use it’s been _days_ , but, not enough to erase the bruise on the kid’s jaw. Jason looks between the communicator in his hand (bigger, harder, the kind you give to the slow kid), and Robin’s mouth, and Robin’s buttoned-up voice is giving him some serious deja vu.

It’s also making him _sweat_ , and he likes to pretend he didn’t just hump the kid into the dirt the other night because he didn’t want Robin to do it for some fucked up reason. For _Batman_ , or Jason, or anyone but himself. He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t work that way, but--

He probably would’ve humped the kid if Ivy hadn’t come back, and Batman hadn’t followed her home. If it had just been Ivy, he could have.

Jason pushes it away. He’s not going to think about her: it happened, he’s. He’s _dealing_ with it, doing his own thing on the streets again and not punching Robin in the face, because Robin _promised_ ,  
and Jason needs all the backup he can get. He _needs_ that promise, and the stupid communicator, and he needs to give the kid a sign before Robin flinches away from the blow that isn’t coming. “You couldn’t just give me your number?”

“I could give you a lot of numbers,” Robin says archly, and Jason doesn’t doubt he’s got a pocket full of cards, the kind he’s seen girls in his old neighborhood tuck into their bra or toss aside, the kind he used to pick up off the pavement and didn’t even have the energy to rip in half. He remembers falling with Robin and it really isn’t the same, when he’s trying to help you save _yourself_. “I don’t need it to keep track of you,” he adds, because Robin can be freakishly honest about that kind of thing, even if he can’t show Jason his fucking _eyes_. “It’s. If _you_ need anything.” Another duffel bag full of clothes, probably. Maybe some money snuck  
into the pocket of the jeans. Jason wonders if he could get a meal, or a shower, or just.

Would Robin want to fucking _talk_ to him? Sit on a rooftop somewhere and bandage his hand?

Jason takes the communicator, but doesn’t look at it. He feels more naked out here in the grey light of the city, the hood pulled up on his sweatshirt and his legs covered in denim instead of vines, and he’s _dealing_ , but he doesn’t really know how to handle that yet. He’s trying not to blame the only lifeline he has left. “I could use a _name_ ,” he says, tracing the edge of Robin’s mask with his gaze and pressing again, wishing he had some facts to go with his stupid feelings.

“Call me Alvin,” and Robin’s still got the mask on, but Jason is pretty sure he doesn’t even blink.

Jason is pretty sure he should have just fucked the kid, Batman or no Batman, because he could have been _over_ him already. He th  
inks Robin knows that, and it’s not helping the plan where he doesn’t punch him again. “Seriously, that’s your name?”

“No, but it’s what you can call me,” and the little shit. He _smiles_ , and he _knows_.

“If I _want_ to call you.”

Alvin-- _Robin_ , shrugs into a turn, that cape rippling after him as he lifts his arm to shoot the grapple. Up up and away. “See you around,” and Jason doesn’t watch his hair whip back with the cape as he follows the line up into the night.

Yeah, Jason thinks, shoving the communicator into his pocket. Maybe.

  



End file.
